


Night Demons (or, Virgon Trevelyan and the Evil Evils of Temptation)

by kollapsar



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe- Urban fantasy, Bad Decisions, M/M, One Night Stands, back-alley makeouts, dorian smoking a pipe, off-screen sex, silliness, the imperium is a nightclub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 09:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3645129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kollapsar/pseuds/kollapsar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bouncer!Inquisitor AU. In which Trevelyan becomes the Bouncer Who Couldn't (Keep It In His Pants) and Dorian is, quite metaphorically, the snake of temptation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Demons (or, Virgon Trevelyan and the Evil Evils of Temptation)

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse me as I shake off the gigantic coat of rust from my fanfiction writing skills. It's been literally forever, but when it came to these two, I simply could not resist. This pairing makes me happier than a street cat in a McDonald's dumpster. I must contribute in my own terrible way.  
> Anyway, the idea of bouncer!Trevelyan and modern fire mage!Dorian causing trouble in the club came to me when I was walking home tonight, and I just ran with it, so with all humility and forthrightness, I hacked this up in one burst and thus take no responsibility.  
> And yeah, my Inquisitor was totally the sort of kook who went "Ha! Community service!" at, you know, that one point in the game.  
> And I'm so sorry, but come on, Dorian and a pipe kind of works.

_Night Demons (or, Virgon Trevelyan and the Evil Evils of Temptation)_

It catches his eye once, twice- a spark of red out of the ordinary in a room otherwise overwhelmed with every color but, an ember of flame rising as a natural light, a beacon, a lighthouse in a room otherwise dominated with the flicker-flash of loud neon. And he thinks that he’s got either a fire hazard on hand or just one of those flashy damn cocktails- the types Sera fancies too much when she’s jammed down enough beer to get spendy.

Nobody told Trevelyan if the Imperium specialized in fiery show-drinks. Nobody told him anything at _all-_ all it’d taken was a bit of prowling here and there, some papers shuffled, a resume that was barely looked at, and there it was- his first night as security detail for a club that had every right to be the swankiest in the district. Maybe it was just the look of him- tall, dark, and quick on his feet. Or, more likely, this was one of _those_ clubs where security detail wasn’t trusted enough to be stuck around long enough, and kept for a disposable gig, a season at best. He wasn’t about to complain about the generous paycheck either way, no, he had other problems.

Like that _flame._ Once more and with vigor, across the swell of bodies and the haze of smoke (because along the way someone had the bright idea to put a hookah corner by the bar, who the hell even owns this place anyway? Pravus something?) there comes that whisper of a light that simply shouldn’t be, right there by the bar.

Oh, Maker. He can see it already. Him coming home, sooty and smelling like a pyre of cigarettes and vaguely of charred people, Sera stretched out with a video game on the couch and scrunching up that little nose of hers, _Whazzat, Trevy, you had an impromptu barbeque over at the Imperious, didja?,_ but slowly reaching for the consolation cupcake cupboard. _No, Sera, someone ordered an exotic drink to impress their girlfriend and ended up setting someone on fire, Sera. That’s not- Sera, stop laughing. Sera, this is serious._

He cringes to himself at the image.

Any other man would let it go, put it down to an idiot with a fancy drink like it probably is. But Trevelyan’s not any other man- he’s seen the fuck ups. He’s been fired for less. There was that time with Sera and the hooker- _Oh, Maker, never again_. So, calmly and as unobtrusively as he may, he begins the press through the bodies of the dance floor towards the bar, squinting his light eyes to get a better sense of just _what is on fire on the other end of the room._

Imagine, if you will, a jigsaw puzzle assembling itself in Trevelyan’s mind as he crosses that room, crushes through the sweat and body spray and alcohol and the reverberation of the music penetrating his ears, all the while staring at the fixture, the lighthouse. Imagine the following: slender but firm hands, ebony rings glittering in the screeching lights, a subtle shimmer, a blackness, olive fingers wafting up a smoky flame between them into the bowl of a pipe.

Smoking it is, he thinks darkly to himself as a woman cuts in front of him, all blond curls and glittering cocktail dress, heels momentarily crushing him before, gone. He pauses, absorbing the pain with a clenched expression, before powering forth through the storm. The song’s almost over. He has time to think, he has hope. What was the policy on magi in the club, anyway? Oh Maker, why didn’t anyone even think to give him a _handbook_ before tonight? He feels like Sera at the DMV, and the fact that he’s even _thinking_ that tells him he’s screwed.

So when Trevelyan _finally_ reaches the bar, only coated in the sweat, booze and Axe of about forty different dancers, he needs to stop and breathe- but for a completely different reason other than having just been crushed by a panoply of drunken clubbers. No, he needs to stop because his offender, his case, his lighthouse, his smoker-

Is, well, _smokin’._

The man is poised like a snake in repose, one hand drifting on the surface of his drink and leaving a trail of blue fire along the surface where it trails, the other curled round his pipe as he takes indolent drags with half-lidded eyes soaking in the atmosphere. He is in drapes of leather and satin, utterly incongruous in this rapid-fire color flash-bang sweat-storm of clubbers.

The song ends- screams die down in the sea behind him. The bartender, soaked up with the backlight of amber color eerily illuminating the alcohol shelves, hurriedly refills the criminal’s drink. Trevelyan has to swallow down the burble of anxiety- his first toss-out, and the man has committed the second offence of being mind-bogglingly attractive. In that lazy, intolerable upper-class way, of course. Pipe and satin. _For fuck’s sake._

“Sir,” he says, even as he stumbles and trips on the tracks of his newfound, somewhat unwelcome train of thought. No response- just another damn indolent puff, a flood of sweet-smelling smoke curling in the air between them. Surely he’s caught his eye? “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

And then, with another moment of getting ignored gone by, Trevelyan does _the security thing._ He puts his hand on the man’s bared shoulder and closes in, forcing a rictus blank on his face. “Sir, magic and smoking are both forbidden in this club.”

A sudden sort of recognition floods into the man’s expression, and it’s almost painful to behold- something in Trevelyan’s throat clenches, because for the first time, the man’s focus is on _him._ That impeccable moustache, those cheekbones, even the mole sidled just a bit below his right eye- all _long_ past being ignored. If this man puts up even a _crumb_ of resistance- just a _modicum-_ well, there goes his job. He can kiss it farewell as it swirls down the bowl.

The music begins again, but there’s no worry there. Security detail has made Trevelyan an experienced lip-reader. It’s not like he wasn’t looking at those lips all along, anyway. “I beg your pardon?”

Well, there it is.

His shoulders sag as he leans in and yells, “I’m going to escort you to the exit, sir.”

And there comes something else, something Trevelyan didn’t expect. A hand comes wrapping round his arm, and the man looks up to him with half-lidded eyes and something of a coy smile that he almost loses in the blur and haze. “Will you, now? The new bouncers are certainly...” He loses whatever the man says next, and from the twitch in his pants, he’s almost glad he can’t hear him.

 _Go. Now._  

Without a word, Trevelyan hustles the man from his chair, ignoring the stiff and sudden resistance he gets in response- clearly _that_ part wasn’t expected. _You can only get so far flirting with the bouncer,_ he chants to himself in his mind, even though he doesn’t believe it, hand firm round this man’s wrist as he walks him sideways through the winding room and the throbbing mass of people. _Only so far. Only so far. Oh Maker. Don’t look back at him. Don’t-_

He looks back at the stranger, and finds the man calmly taking a sip of his drink, eyes locked on him.

He wants to stop and ask him, _Who are you?_ Because most people don’t act this way when they’re being seen out. Most kick, scream, yank, protest. But this man comes along with an unnatural ease- and keeps drinking. He wants to say something, but there’s no point now.

Somewhere along the way out, Trevelyan gets the itching sense that he is deeply screwed.

When the exit doors slam shut and the bass and bleating music and the beat is all gone, the night air hits him hard like a thump in the chest and he has to stop, take in the oddly clean steps leading from the exit, the distant sound of a siren.

The moment is broken by the sound of the man clearing his throat impatiently.

Trevelyan jolts to realize his hand is still firm around the man’s wrist- he lets go, jumping away sideways in an awkward crabwalk. Ah, Maker. It was always so easy to escort out the idiots and drunkards and upstarts- why is he suddenly a teenage girl at loss for words around this presence?

He’ll explain it this way: This man’s different. As he thinks, the man is casually raising his pipe again, magicking a spark from the crisp dark air and directing a flame into the bowl. “Now,” he says, startling Trevelyan with the sweet, low assuredness of his tone and voice, “I was wondering how long it would take to get your attention.”

“You-” he stutters, stops himself, and takes a second to recollect through the sudden stone in his throat at the man’s words. _Come on, Trevelyan, make this come out authoritatively._ “Fire magic. Hazard to others. Smoking. Prohibited in Imperium.” Oh no, he’s blushing.

The man’s fingers still, lit up by the miniature ember in his pipe. Slowly, he cranks his gaze over to Trevelyan’s direction, the streetlight down the alley illuminating each well-cut facet of his cheekbones as he goes. “Is that it?” he asks. “Here I thought you actually sought the pleasure of my company. Disappointing.”

“I must repeat myself. Smokin-”

Before he can finish, he’s shut up by a set of long fingers rested just barely on his parted lips. The touch almost makes him jump.

“Hush. I know it’s hard to talk in my presence, but you seemed to have no problem escorting me out, so here,” genially, he spreads his arms and does an almost gracious bow, smiling up at him with all the gracious calm of royalty. “Here’s my time. What’s your name, or shall we settle with calling you Tall, Dark and Mysterious? I know circles where pseudonyms are quite the mode.”

“Ser,” he near-whimpers, “I must insist, you understand the terms on which I escorted you out and I must then take my leave-”

“That won’t quite be necessary,” the man interrupts, again, making Trevelyan think that he quite does have a dominance issue going on, here. It’s making his back bristle in all the wrong (right?) ways. “I know all of the conditions of the Imperium. But if we are to converse like men,” and here his voice takes a dangerous, deep tone that brings Trevelyan rutting down to the gutter- thank Maker it’s dark- “there ought to be a civil little exchange of names.” A pause. “I insist.”

“Virgon Trevelyan.” He gulps. “This is my first night on security detail.” 

His expression brightens. “Good, it talks! Here I thought I’d be kissing a mute.” Cheerfully, he says, “Dorian Pavus. Care for a smoke?” And there goes his finger between them, a cherry of a flame rising and casting the man- Dorian’s - Mr. Pavus’s- face into relief of orange and red and the blue of the distant streetlight.

“Sir- Mr. Pavus- I didn’t bring you out here to _kiss you_ ,” Trevelyan almost wants to cry, because he’d _love_ to- but there’s a job to be done, and surely more, less attractive folk back in there to be escorted out for any variety of misconducts. As Mr. Pavus maintains that singular fire between them, brings it rising higher and captivating his eyes, he wants to snap that man’s wrist away and push him up against the exit door and drag the smoke from his lips- no, no, there’s a job to be done.

He’s not swapping spit with a rule-breaker on the first night. There are lines that really don’t need crossing there.

...It’s _clearly_ been too long for him.

“No, you didn’t bring me out for kissing, not properly,” the man says, much too agreeably. He takes a drink. “But seeing how I’m the owner of the place, I may as well demand you don’t waste my time at this point.”

_Oh._

_Oh._

_Pavus. Right. Shit._

Trevelyan catches himself at the impasse of scraping his screaming libido's interference out of the situation and packing it somewhere appropriate, and the choice: _forget it. You’re fucked._ It could all be an elaborate ploy by this alluring fire-magi to get him fired, it could be a shitty setup tangled together by Sera’s hands- _remember that hooker, Trevelyan?-_ but there he is, with an option. Like gift-wrapped poison, honey-eyed, and _clearly_ about to start laughing at him for his idiocy no matter _what_ he does.

(Yeah, but nobody told Trevelyan that this night would turn out into a game of _Fuck your boss or get fucked?)_

The hysterical chuckle is already slipping out of his lips, hazing his mind and bringing him closer to the man, pressing him up against the door. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed,” he says, clearly just as gleeful at this setup as he is. “Need a drink for this? The brandy’s rather strong tonight, unlike the usual watered-down dishwater alcohol.”

“No.” A hand- his own, he finds- come up and grazes the man’s cheek. “Do you... test every new bouncer this way?” he asks, even as Mr. Pavus empties away his pipe, slips it away and pulls him around, pressing him in turn to the door- cold and flat against him, he finds the man even more in focus in the dark. “No one put this on the job details,” he whispers, smiling even as he feels his own job prospects cracking and falling away, forever out of reach. “I’m slightly intimidated, ser.”

“It’s just Dorian.” He takes a breath, leaning into Trevelyan’s space. “And I don’t usually _test_ bouncers this way, no. But then, most of the lot know better than to escort the owner of a club off his own premises.”

He can feel his face go red at that, but he has no chance to repudiate. Dorian takes the choice right out of the air, closes the space between them and locks him in a kiss that- now he _knows_ it’s been too long- nearly knocks the vision out of him. Heat, space, body pressed far too close between the man and the door and _well I could get used to this_ and his arms wrap around the man, gripping that satin and leather and crushing him closer.

Just as quickly as he came, Dorian breaks away, fingers weaving a pattern of fire off to the side that makes Trevelyan think of natural disasters and volcanoes and, cliche as it sounds, sparks flying. “I could be fired for this,” he says, a revelation out loud, as he pants into the hot space between them. “You could easily fire me. Sera and I are going to have to sell our bodies to make the rent this month.”

Dorian raises and eyebrow at him, lips curling in confusion for the first time. Trevelyan almost savors it. “Sera?”

“Roommate. Not interested. I’m bad enough to swap spit with my boss, but not to cheat. But, wow, I _could_ get fired for this.”

His faces eases up and a smile- an utterly devious, terribly hot _smile-_ reaches across his face. “And you could sue me for sexual harassment, and I could say you _dragged_ me off the premises to harass me for looking entirely too splendid in these clothes, and this could be a court war over a single, frisky back-alley encounter- but who’s counting?”

“You’re going to give me a heart attack,” he growls piteously, and, against all good judgment, pulls him right back in. Trevelyan can barely register the fire lattice burning out to but a wisp in his peripheral vision as Dorian’s hands probe beneath his black security shirt, examining, gripping, stroking.

“If that’s what gets a rise out of you,” Dorian all but purrs, and he can’t help but laugh as he presses his lips down on his, coating his tongue with the bite of brandy and the bitterness of the pipe. “Just-” he pauses, panting, hands already halfway down Trevelyan’s pants- “I’m just Dorian Pavus to you, yes? This has nothing to do with me being your boss. Not really.”

“Maker,” he whines, holding the man’s hips close to his own, “sure, you can be whatever you want to me right now.”

“Just,” Dorian repeats, laughing slightly with a voice so thick with arousal that it makes Trevelyan burn to make irresponsible decisions right then and there. “Just remember that you don’t have to fuck me as if your job depends on it.”

 He groans a little and feels a stupid little giggle of his own coming up his throat somewhere along the way. “I’ll do it anyway, if you let me.”

* * *

One angry letter from Halward Pavus- the _actual_ owner of the Imperium- and a thinly veiled threat on his life later, Trevelyan is wait staff at the twenty-four hour diner down the street from the Imperium and forever known as The Bouncer Who Couldn’t (Keep It In His Pants, as Sera likes to wittily add).

He likes to tell himself it could have turned out much worse: there _could_ have been a court case, but in the end there was just a bit of fire and a truly impressively written sophisticated smackdown. It’s both the most furious and classy letter of dismissal he’s ever gotten, considering the truly _base_ reason for which it was written. (Because in the end, nobody really can get away with having loud, rough sex with the club owner’s son in the very back alley of that club.)

And no, Sera _won’t_ let him live it down.

 So here’s Trevelyan’s new life with his new job in the city: third shift, red eyes, drunken folks who just stumbled out of the club at closing time, and all the weird folk you could imagine in between willing enough to hang out in a twenty-four hour diner at the most indecent hours of the night. He supposes it could be worse- drunken people tip well, after all.

What he isn’t sure what to make of, however, is the man who enters one particularly rainy night, cursing and twitching and constantly fixing the wet moustache aright on his face as he saunters in, a bundle of dripping roses in hand.

“Listen,” he blurts, wiping a rivulet of soaked eyeliner away from his cheek, "I've had enough to drink, I had these roses since... Heavens knows since, couple days, I shan't lie to you and say they're fresh, but I did think of you when I saw them. That’s what people do, right? When they mean to apologize? Flowers?"

It’d be almost cute, but Trevelyan is frozen with his notepad at the ready in the middle of taking someone else’s order, but Dorian clearly never understood the point of priorities. It’s two in the morning, one man has roses and the other got fired from his last job because he fucked someone in an alley on the first night- nope, they’re both too far gone to wax on notions of priorities, or decency for all that matter. “That _would_ be what people would do, yes,” he says, softly. 

Annoyedly, Dorian looks to the startled customer and the waiter before him, huffs, and turns. “When you’re ready,” he mutters, clearly put off by this stutter in his advances, and shuffles off to a table.

Trevelyan catches himself zoning out through the subsequent order and probably giving it wrong to the cook, but by the look of disapproval coming from the grand total of four customers in this otherwise deserted diner, he probably couldn’t fuck it up any worse anyway. When he reaches Dorian’s table, the man’s already magicked himself a small orb of fire to dry off in front of, and he’s practically preening before it, straightening up his hair as if he was at the vanity in the privacy of his own room.

“I swear you’re not allowed that in here,” he says, softer than he means to be. “But really? Roses?”

“Shut up and take my order, or they’re not for you. I want tea. Earl grey, if your stock-” he scrunches up his nose, seeming to take in the linoleum flooring and 50-year-old jukebox for the first time- “would have anything of that sort.”

“No,” Trevelyan says, his face breaking with the effort it’s taking to hold in his smile. “It wouldn’t, Dorian.”

He sighs. “Ah, well then. Suppose it was too much to ask. A plain coffee then,” he looks up at him, and for the first time since storming into the diner, smiles. “Please.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.” He curls his fingers together, leaning forward almost conspiratorially. “You really should have seen the fight I had with my father after you. Simply unprecedented.”

 He feels his own shoulders drop. “Unprecedented, as in this has happened before?” _Ah, Trevvy,_ the Sera of his head mentally comforts him, _You can’t just grow crushes on the blokes that make you lose your job. All that lying about being your boss business and whatnot to get in your pants. Course it happened before, yeah?_

“Not quite as quickly, and not resulting in any jobs lost, no,” Dorian mutters, silencing the inner Sera devil in Trevelyan’s mind. As he speaks, the man looks beyond the wide windowpanes of the diner, to the decrepit, rain-soaked street beyond. “You were rather the exception to the rule in that case. But then, I never did try for a bouncer.” He licks his lips, as in considering the experience.

“Should I be flattered?”

“I don’t bring all my indiscretions flowers, so yes, you should. But then, I rather do feel regretful that you lost your job for a simple bit of back-alley jousting- I really did my part, there. It all seems unfair, given your... build,” he says, before his voice takes on an almost grumpy edge- “But are you getting that drink?”

He pauses, somewhat arrested by the nuances of the man’s speech. There wasn’t quite this much talking the last time around, and it seems strange that Dorian would have the graciousness to show up like this at all. “I will, but first I need to ask you something.”

“Oh,” Dorian heaves a sigh, and looks to him, “I suppose I _could_ oblige.” There’s a hint of friendliness in there that gives Trevelyan hope- for what, he doesn’t know. Maybe it just proves to him that the man is far more human than the alluring specter he met and fell to one night weeks ago.

“Are those truly ‘sorry’ flowers, or are they ‘courtship’ flowers?” he asks, pointing his pen to the sodden bouquet in question.

“Oh, for- of the _inappropriate-_ ” If he didn’t know better about how shameless the man could be, he’d think Dorian Pavus was blushing. “Just... get on with the coffee, Trevelyan. Kindly.”

“You owe me for my lost job, I might as well-”

“Well, then. They’re _get on with the coffee_ flowers.”

Barely suppressing a smile, Trevelyan whirls around and makes the order. He _really_ ought not to feel this juvenile sort of glee to having this man back around. There’s some sort of bad luck charm here just hanging about threatening to lose him another job, what with a sulking, attractive young patron in the booth casting a _small fireball_ to dry himself off and a couple of appalled and horrified looks being thrown his way across the room.

But he thinks, tonight, he’ll take his chances. If anything, that’ll just mean Dorian will owe him more flowers. Or his number. Trevelyan never was very good with temptation.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So... there we are. //laugh  
> Thanks for staying with me; feedback is welcome.


End file.
